46 NOVEMDER I'! 1927 A R.E.POR. TE.R. AT LAR.GE. B y eight o'clock, silence has come to those lower reaches of the Island which begin at City Hall Park and stretch through the deep, narrow streets toward the Bat- tery. .L nd from that hour onward the quiet seems to thicken. It becomes, to the ear, as a fog is to the eye: stretch- ing out and growing more ponderable with every moment, gradually shutting out small, obscure sounds as a fog shuts out small and obscure lights. At eight o'clock the cleaning women have made their passage through the streets and are in the buildings. One is aware of them, for the lights glitter in the windows of the high cliff walls; and one knows that in ten thousand offices the women are bending on their knees, laboring with brush and broom. The swish of their implements, their thick, witless chatter, are somehow in the atmosphere even though they can- not be heard. Even in the empty streets, there is the eternally comf ort- ing knowledge that human life is near at hand: active, intent, eager. One. by one, then, the lights glitter- ing against the dark sky go out. F aint- I y to the ear come the sound of clat- tering buckets, of shuffling feet. Shad- owy, stooped figures begin to hurry out of the black doors of the build- ings, muttering and complaining, go- ing swiftly toward the subway en- trances which swallow them. Out of a cave they come, and into another cave they go. transient creatures, mov- ing uneasily across a void. And the disturbance that is caused by their pass- ing is very quickly over. This is at ten o'clock, perhaps a lit- tle later. Emptiness is in the streets when the cleaning women have gOI1e. Emptiness in the air. A monstrous and oppressive sense of vacancy creeps into the world that lies about, and becomes almost a, tactile thing. One is used to the rush and stir of the city, the ceaseless clamor, the unfailing sight of human haste. And there one is in Wall Street-Wall Street, the scene of the city's greatest restlessness in daylight hours-but all is quiet, quiet, as if a million crying tongues had sud- denly been stricken by a plague. The buildings rise from the narrow alleys of the streets, f antasticall y high and unreal against the blue, powdery light of the moon. The feeling grows that they are tombstones, these buildings: standing in the graveyard of men's miraculous dreams. For about their NIGHT: DOWNTOWN feet the air grows heavy with empti- ness. A faint odor of must settles down. But loneliness does not long endure when the imagination gets to its work. And before very long, standing in a fixed spot and simply staring at those perpendiculars that fling themselves against the sky, there comes amaze- ment. With what unbelievable craft the world of men arranges its af- fairs! All day, they had toiled in those . . · ....:II.".... . .;-:.- . . - . . r II^!' ( ... . : · I .. to I " ........!!...-.- . . L. -. "'''' · . " -:- . .. .." t'.. r --..I........ ....a.; ..' ,. , - . A , ' ?< " . . --"..::.:- . . -.....:;. -.. " ;ø r '. _.I....-r Iø' , .' þ J (,. (I J - .. , ....,. r !".:: .M' . >: ,1ft '. of. / :', ....... ; ,;:.. .., I " þ.. . ...'C" ..' .... .'. ,;;....... ..... ì -!. "1:.. ., 1'. ; :f;j/;::. . ........-... . . -, ' . ?" .r 'W>, #:...., # i . " .. ':-: (J ,t.;,:. ) ....0'1:.... .... .J'S : " ":./ . -'.-:: .".?,...! r(l"1. .. ...:. :; . ...rt} . ' I.i ' "'7 1 / ,.... ; ."a;d'.;.- t ", : . .: , . 46 / 'h.". . j '" ..' ' Þ-' ',.' i.' .' : ..). ...J,. , \ . . 'ii"" '-- . \ ,'. '",.,;. II' . " ' Ii "ç: r ::'. .#; ,.. c. .. ! ; , <<I ' . ... . ......., F -- -- . . buildings, the thousands of them. Mo- ments, even fractions of moments, counted heavily once or twice perhaps in the making of a fortune. Speed was the essential thing, during the day. Swift movement, swifter thinking. N ever could the tools be laid down f or an instant. Ten thousand tele- phones whirring with words. Ten thousand typewriters clattering breath- lessly. Men and women leaning over desks, intent, eager, utterly forgetful of any world beyond their own vision. Business, business, business-the only end of living; a thing so crushingly alive that, no doubt, it had been the death of more than one man during that single day. And then, at the stroke of a bell, business died. It faded in- stantly from the minds of all those thousands. Despite the terrific mo- Inentum it had gained through eight hours, it had stopped dead at a signal. Letters half finished left in type- writers. Voices that two moments be- fore had spoken in clipped, hard sen- tences of prices and coupon bonds and bank balances, began to speak of every- thing else on earth except those sym- bols of commerce. A great rush-and business aban- doned for the day. The scene aban- doned. Billions of dollars in property 2nd masonry left idle for sixteen hours of the twenty-four. Emptiness. And the people, in all the world, who sat about pleasant rooms and talked idly of Wall Street were not thinking of this empty, dark, silent gash in an up- fi ung heap of steel and stones. A N old newspaper fled across the asphalt with a dull sigh. Far, far above, in some deserted office, a tele- phone rang with frantic impatience. Wall Street seemed to mock that sound. Ring all you please, little devil. You can't arouse me from my sleep. Behind grilles of heavy iron, the gods of the world lay dozing. In yel- low stacks and green they lay in their steel Valhalla, themselves as silent as the street and as secure. Neatly piled, in the way that they find comfortable, the gods of the world were slumber- ing, a little deaf, one fancied, to the fervent prayers that were being ad- dressed to them from the world. Up against the western sky there loomed the symbol of another god: a spire that once was very tall, but dwarfed a little now by the great square buttresses that lay about it, shut- ting it off from that sky toward which it reached. Old Trinity was silent too, dark, and deserted even by its ghosts. Yet, for aU its fellowship of quiet, and for all its lack of size jn that shadowy scene where size seemed the most impressive of all things, it stood with a certain sureness, a certain aloof dignity, staring down into the empti- ness of Wall Street. One considered, without reaching any sure conclusions, what prayers were buffetting against its black, hard walls in this remote hour, and what the destiny of these prayers might be. . . . Far off, in the harbor, the tugboats